While shopping for some aquarium supplies, I adopted 4 convict cichlid fry. They were tiny, transparent and cute and they found plenty of hiding spaces in the dangerous waters of our kitchen-counter aquarium.
A centerpiece of my living room has been a peaceful community aquarium with decent lighting to support plant life. For over ten years the tank has contained a 12″ Plecostomus and 100′s of Fancy Guppies. At times, it seems as if we have thousands of guppies, which recently was the case causing quite an over-population problem.
Simple solution: Another aquarium introducing Oscar the not-so-friendly cichlid. We started the tank with little Oscar and about 100 guppies, then 2 weeks later added the Convict Cichlid fry. The oscar only ate the smallest guppies over the next month as he grew. It seemed 50+ guppies were ‘familiar tankmates’ and not on Oscar’s menu.
Something odd happened when I rearranged the tanks and set up the Oscar and the Convicts with our Pleco in a larger tank in the living room, then moved the guppies to a new, smaller tank in the kitchen. The move was unsettling to Oscar and it hid behind a rock in the new tank. When the waters cleared, he came out with a ferocious demeanor and ate every one of the guppies in 24 hours! Literally 100 fancy guppies gone overnight. A few days later I dropped in a several dozen more and by morning, gone! Oscar is is a new man.
The convicts are awesome! They live with contently with this Oscar and swim with it when it’s feeding time. I know they will need new confines soon, but they are definitely my favorite fish in a while. These are particularly handsome individuals and should show blues, and the iridescent gold tones as they mature.
Here is a photo of one convict cichlid over 1 month old.
